Rumblers vs Twihards
by Switchblades and Sunsets
Summary: This is the story a rumbler has to tell to the world about her brave mission to keep believing in the beauty of the timeless rivalry between greasers and Socs, despite the gang of Twihards who could attack at any moment. *PARODY*
1. The First Attack

**Yep, it's another parody. I'm starting to really like these things. **

**Anyway, this is what I think the Outsiders would be like if it was written in modern times... by an Outsiders fanatic. ;) It's all for good fun, please keep an open mind while reading. **

**I don't own the Outsiders, or any of the lines that you recognise. Which will be many.**

When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Sodapop Curtis, and the fact that Matt Dillon played a side character in the movie I just watched.

I was wishing I looked like Sodapop Curtis- even though he's a boy and I'm not- but I guess my own looks aren't so bad. I have light brown, almost red hair, which I guess you could say is simply auburn, but I like saying that it's "light brown, almost red" because that's Ponyboy's hair colour and I want to have at least _one_ thing in common with him.

Instead of greenish gray eyes, though, my eyes were a boring hazel colour. _No one_ in the Outsiders gang had that eyes that colour. _Sigh_. I wish they were more green, gray, blue, dark brown, or almost ANY colour at all besides this weird mix, but I have to be content with what I have. Ponyboy was.

My hair is shorter than most girls wear theirs, in a way that made me look more like a guy than a girl from the back, but I am a proud Outsiders fanatic and most of the fandom I belong to never let it grow out, so that we'd be just like the greasers from the 60s, but without the greased hair. Besides, I look better with short hair.

I had a long walk home and no company, but I usually lone it anyway, for no reason except that I like to watch movies undisturbed so that I can give each of the actors Outsiders names, then say them out loud to try them for size. When I see a movie with someone it's sort of uncomfortable, because they always look at me like I'm crazy or something when I do stuff like that.

I'm different that way. I mean, my older sister, Melanie, who's sixteen-going-on-seventeen, doesn't care that she's exactly the same age as Sodapop right now, and my parents are always too stressed with bills and taxes to be interested in a good fanfiction or a piece of fan art from one of the well-known names in the fandom, so I'm not like them. For a while, before I found the fandom, I thought I was the only person in the world that loved the Outsiders so much. Even afterwards, I could only talk to my fellow fans via the internet. So I loned it.

Melanie tries to understand, at least, which is more than my parents do. But then, Mel is different from anybody; she understands everything, almost. Like she's never trying to change me like my parents do, or treating my obsession like it was a disease. I love Melanie more than I've ever loved anyone. She's almost like my own personal Sodapop, except the fact that she's a little more serious than he is.

Anyway, I went on walking home, thinking about the Outsiders like I always did, ( The movie had already been forgotten) and then suddenly wishing I had some company. Any extreme fan of something knows that you can't walk alone too much or someone of a different fandom will attack and try to convert you. Either that or someone will come and scream "Freak!" at you, which doesn't make you feel too great, if you know what I mean.

The enemies of Outsider rumblers like me are the Twihards, who are always attacking us to try to force us to like the Twilight series. We have an alliance of sorts with the Pottermaniacs, who acknowledge that the Outsiders is a good book, but stick to their HP.

We're fewer than the Pottermaniacs or the Twihards. I reckon we're fiercer and more dedicated, too. Not like the Twihards, who attack lone rumblers and wear "Team Edward/Jacob" t-shirts readily made for them at stores, and get scorned by adults one day and praised the next. Rumblers are almost like Classics (The very rare fans of the classics who make it their mission to spread the love of the oldest stories) ; we make our own fan shirts and quote parts of the book on English papers and spread the Outsiders goodness by doing rallies and even having fights with the other smaller fandoms once in a while.

I don't mean I do these things. I'm only saying that most rumblers do things like that, just like how we memorise the book by heart, have usernames having to do with the book, and research the 60s for fun. And I'm not saying that either the Twihards or the rumblers are better; that's just the way things are. Groups like these have existed since the dawn of time- The Outsiders proved as much.

I could have waited to go to the movies until my parents or Melanie had the time. Or I could've watched the movie online for free with my fandom buddies- one of the exclusive fanclub I belonged to that only had 7 spots. We were all tested on our knowledge, devotion, and love for the book, and in a tight-knit online community like that, we got to know each other so well that we were practically family. Each of us played a character in the Outsiders gang, so that I pretty much lived the book itself.

That's when I saw that silver Volvo trailing me. I was almost two blocks from home then, so I started walking a little faster. I'd never been attacked before, but I knew the story Jolie told us at the fanclub about when the Twihards had gotten hold of her, and it wasn't a pretty story. Jolie was never the same about The Outsiders after that; never as enthusiastic and hardly posting anymore. We were lucky she'd even had the nerve to stay a part of the fandom after that, never mind the fanclub.

I knew it wasn't any use though- the fast walking, I mean- even before the Volvo stopped and five obvious Twihards got out. I got pretty scared- I'm kinda small for fourteen even though I took swimming classes to get to the fitness level Ponyboy described himself to be, and those Twihards were always ten times stronger than they looked.

I mean, they all looked like either an Alice or a Bella, and that wasn't very threatening, except that both characters were vampires (eventually). So they somehow managed to be strong and small at the same time.

I automatically hitched my thumbs in my jeans and slouched, wondering if I could get away if I made a break for it. But no, I remembered. The Twilight vampires were fast, so these girls all trained in track as well.

I remembered the picture of Jolie she'd taken of herself after the Twihards got to her- her whole body decorated with Twilight stickers and wearing one of those "I love boys who SPARKLE" t-shirts that were humiliating to all female Rumblers, because it was a disgrace to Sodapop Curtis.

I remembered how her face had been streaked with tears in the awful photo. It took a lot to make Jolie cry- her family thought she was mental for loving the Outsiders so much, and locked her in her room for hours a day to "snap her out of it".

I bit my lip, trying to fend them off by the classic Bella-move. We'd all studied Twilight, so that we knew their tricks and they weaknesses. Hopefully, by giving them a Twilight reference, they'd be so excited that I'd be able to get away.

When that didn't work, and they just kept surrounding me, I looked around for something that would reference the Outsiders and give me a little much-needed strength to resist, but there was nothing, so I just stood there like a bump on a log while they circled me, smiling. They were all skinnier than me, and two were younger and shorter than me, but I knew that that wasn't their true nature.

"Hey, Rumblie," one said in a high, sugary sweet voice, "We're going do you a favour, Rumbler. We're going to give you a whole new wardrobe! What kind of girl likes to wear rags like those?"

She had on a black, skin-tight Twilight shirt that said "I 3 Vampires". I can still see it. The typical overpriced Twilight merchandise that you can buy just about anywhere.

One of them giggled, and patted me on the head. I couldn't think of anything to say. There just isn't a whole lot you can say while waiting for your whole life to be turned upside down, so I kept my mouth shut.

"Now, let's start with a nice new shirt, shall we?" one of the younger girls said, pulling out a black shirt from the trunk of the Volvo. She held it up, and advanced towards me, still smiling.

**

* * *

**

Okay, that's it for now. Review? :)


	2. The Gang to the Rescue

**Your awesome reviews have caused me to update this thing, whatever it may be. :) **

**I still don't own the Outsiders, or the lines used here that you recognise. Nor Twilight (thank God for that), nor Harry Potter. Yeah. I don't actually own anything I reference. Anyway... enjoy! :)**

* * *

I finally thought of something to say. "No thanks." I was backing up, away from that dreaded black, shiny t-shirt. Of course I backed right into one of them. They squealed happily, and had me down in a second. They had my arms and legs pinned down and one of them started putting a barrette in my hair, so tightly that it was yanking my hair out by the roots, and if you think that doesn't hurt for a girl, you're crazy.

I could smell sickly sweet perfume and hairspray, and I was wondering foolishly if I would pass out from the half-toxic fumes before they did anything. I was scared so bad I was wishing I would.

I fought like a greaser would to get loose, and almost did for a second; then they tightened up on me and the one not pinning me down dusted a powdery cloud of makeup on my whole face, making me choke. So I lay still, muttering prayers to the Greek god Sodapop between coughs.

After doing all sorts of horrible things to my face, the Twihard holding the shirt dropped it daintily on the hood of the shiny car, and picked up a tube of something labelled "venom lip-gloss". She held it in front of my mouth with the cap open. It smelled... like _them_.

"Once this is on your lips, you'll never go back to your disgusting Rumbler fanclub again," she purred.

It occurred to me that they could convert me completely if that stuff touched my lips. I went wild. I started screaming for Melanie, my parents, anyone. Somebody put her powder white hand over my mouth, and I decided then that I'd have to fight fire with fire today, and so I did the only thing I could think of doing: I bit it as hard as I could, tasting the blood running through my teeth.

Disgusting. I never thought I'd have to stoop so low to get free...

The girl screamed, and sprayed perfume in my eyes, making them tear up instantly. They were stuffing an embroidered handkerchief in my mouth, and one of them kept saying, "Oh my Edward, this one's a real fighter!"

Then there were shouts and the pounding of feet, and the Twihards hopped up with another little squeal, and left me lying there, hyperventilating. I lay there and wondered what in the world was happening- people were jumping over me and running by me and I was too shocked to figure it out. Then someone had me under the armpits and was hauling me to my feet. Dad.

"Are you all right, Cynthia? What were those girls doing to you? You look so... different!"

He was running a hand through my hair and I wished he'd stop. I was disgusted enough about it as it was. As embarrassed as I was, though, I could tell it was Dad- partly because of the voice and partly because his elation at my transformation was barely hid. Dad's always been the one in my family who wanted me to leave the Outsiders alone the most.

"I'm okay. Quit doing that, Dad, and don't call me Cynthia," I grumbled.

He stopped instantly. "I'm sorry."

He wasn't really. My dad's never sorry about anything he does. It seems funny to me that Melanie could look so much like my father and act exactly the opposite from him.

My father is the Darry in my life, though I'd never tell him that. He looks almost identical to him, except for the hair. He has dirty blond hair, something I'm glad I never picked up. He acts just like Darry too, not getting anything that isn't plain hard fact and not understanding why I love a book so much, but he's a little gentler than Darry and doesn't yell as much.

I sat down again, fruitlessly trying to rub off the dried eyeliner they'd somehow managed to put on me without poking my eyes out.

Dad jammed his fists in his pockets. "They didn't do that much to you, did they? It's only a little makeup and some hair stuff."

They did. My whole face felt uncomfortable and tingly, my scalp hurt from end to end, and I wanted to start bawling, but you just don't say that to my dad.

"Yeah, not too much."

Melanie came back over, and behind her were four people I thought I'd only get to see through pictures on the internet- Jolie, Tammy, Daphne, and Steph. It was the first time I'd ever seen them in person, and I was so shocked I almost forgot about what happened, until Mel dropped down beside me, examining the back of my head.

"They even curled your hair and put extensions in it, didn't they, Pamela?"

I only looked at her blankly. "They did?"

She kept on looking at my hair. "Your hair looks longer than I've seen it in years."

"It is?"

"Look!" She took out a mirror and angled it carefully so that I could see only the back of my head and not my face. I realized I had long hair as if by magic. "And you're wearing one of their shirts! Did they pull a whole new outfit on you?"

I remembered the voice: "We're going do you a favour, Rumbler. We're going to give you a whole new wardrobe! What kind of girl likes to wear rags like those?" They must have gone all the way with it.

"Yeah."

Mel looked at me more closely. I looked away hurriedly, not wanting to meet her eyes, because if you want to know the truth, I was starting to bawl. I knew I must've looked as non-Rumbler as I felt and I was shaking like a leaf.

Melanie just gave me a hug. "Easy, Pammy," she whispered, then added in a fake southern twang to try to cheer me up, "they ain't gonna do nothin' else to you while your buddies are around." When I still didn't say anything, she said, "They came all the way here just as a surprise for you. I didn't know you had such good friends..."

"I know," I said, but the ground began to blur and I felt hot tears running down my cheeks. I brushed them away impatiently. "I'm just a little spooked, that's all. I thought they'd turn me into one of them." I drew in a quivering breath and quit crying. Jolie was here, and a Rumbler just isn't supposed to cry unless you're as messed up as Jolie was. Compared to her I was barely changed at all.

Mel rubbed my hair, taking off some more barrettes while she was at it. "You're a nice girl, Pammy. Don't let them change you. You're awesome the way you are."

I had to grin at her attempt at a pep talk- Just like Sodapop, Melanie could make anyone grin no matter what. I guess it's because she just sees things simply and doesn't understand how anyone could complicate it. Just like the enmity between the Rumblers and the Twihards. She sees it as useless and doesn't really understand why anyone could obsess over a fictional world so much.

"You're crazy, Mel, out of your mind," I muttered, an Outsiders quote rolling off my tongue with me barely realizing it.

My parents just looked at each other and shook their heads disbelievingly.

"You two both need to focus on schoolwork more," my mom grumbled. "Books and clothes never got anyone famous or rich. I wish you guys would focus on something else for a change."

Melanie's eyes sparkled visibly as she said, "Yes they did. Ever heard of authors and fashion designers?"

Mom stared at her for a second, then cracked a tight-lipped smile. Melanie knows my mom and dad well enough that she knows exactly what will set them off and what will get them off our cases. That's partly why she never gets grounded.

Oh, and I should explain a little about the clothing comment. You see, I have my Outsiders, but my sister only cares about the stuff you wear every day. Yes, _clothes_. She's pretty much an expert on it, and she helps me design my Rumbler outfits even though she constantly complains about how boring it is.

By then, the gang I'd only seen on pictures had chased the Twihards to their beloved Volvo and spray-painted phrases on their cars. The examples I could read were, _"Twilight's nothin' but a fad; The Outsiders is here to stay!" _, _"Sparkly Barbie vampires with their designer clothes and shoes have nothing on good old hair grease, jeans and leather jackets!", _and_ "Twilight boys are made of marble. The Outsiders are made of flesh, blood, spirit and passion." _

After the car had gone too far away for them to chase, they came running toward us. I marvelled at how different they looked in person. I'd spent more time with them on the fanclub than I did with any of my classmates, and they accepted me, even though I was younger, because I had proved myself dedicated about the Outsiders at the _Interview_. It's a long story.

**

* * *

**

I'll stop again here. This is really a lot of fun. XD Review?


	3. Who We Are and What We Do

**Yep, it's another chapter. :) I do not own the Outsiders, or any of the lines I'm using that you recognise. Note: See if you can spot the movie reference! ;)**

* * *

Finally getting a chance to see my online buddies- most of them, at least- in person, I didn't waste any time describing them in detail in my head, just like Ponyboy would have. You see, us major Rumblers at the fanclub have sort of... _taken over_ the personality traits and habits and everything in between of the Outsiders character we chose to impersonate.

It sounds a little creepy when you word it like that, but really, it's a perfectly healthy arrangement. Two years ago, when I first joined the club, it was a little hard to get into character absolutely, devoting my whole life to the Cause. Once in a while, I'd slip up and say something like, "I'm, like, so in love with the Outsiders!"

Obviously, a greaser from the 60s wouldn't have dreamed of saying something like that. They would've said something more like, "Glory, that book is sure somethin'. Once ya pick it up, it's impossible not to dig it, y'know?"

Of course, I'm no expert on 60s slang... At least, not yet. So I still got a few things wrong from time to time. However, I knew that the key was fighting to maintain the attitude. Passion and spirit were the key to mastering anything, not cold hard skill.

Twihards were good at what they did, I had to give them that much, but they had various degrees of loyalty in their giant fandom, and that made it hard for them to focus their power, the power of a group of fans' love and obsession. They never knew who was a double-edged sword and who was a true fan. Someone claiming complete loyalty one day could backstab them on a forum the next. This was the Rumblers' only advantage- we stuck together.

Getting my head out of the clouds, happy to have the chance to do so, I began to examine Steph, while remembering the things we'd gotten to know about her through the fandom and fanclub.

Steph MacKinnon was sixteen, and intensely impatient for her next birthday. She had the trademark short Rumbler hair, which she curled so it'd be something close to what we believed were Steve's "complicated swirls". She was kind by nature, which was totally- I mean, completely- not like Steve, so she worked day and night to quell the compassion and let her "cocky and smart" side show.

Steph's specialty was focus. Really intense focus. Though, personality-wise, she was very unlike Steve, she worked harder than any of us to achieve total Stevedom. While the rest of us were busy goofing around, she practiced getting into character. That's why she was one of the most convincing ones in the fanclub. If you didn't know her really well you'd never know she was actually really nice underneath all the character-simulation.

I liked Steph only because I knew she had that kind streak. She didn't like me at all- she thought I didn't try hard enough, was too young to take things seriously, and didn't belong in the fanclub.

Selina- Soda's fanclub counterpart- always told me the places the Rumblers were planning to spread the Outsiders awareness as soon as she knew as long as they weren't planning to actually hack in, and that bugged Steph. It wasn't my fault- Selina always told me, I didn't ask her. Sel doesn't think I'm too young.

Tammy Davidson was the oldest of the fandom and the joker of the group, which was a given considering her real-life roleplaying part was Two-Bit. She was someone who took the role naturally, slipping into it like a glove. Maybe because unlike Steph, she was a born Two-Bit.

She was a little chubby, had a constant friendly grin, and always let her side bangs grow out a lot longer than the rest of her hair. Tammy had naturally light brown eyes, though. She wore colour contacts to make her eyes Two-Bit-gray, and I was insanely jealous of it. I guess you're allowed more freedom when you're a legal adult.

Tammy's real name is Tabitha, a name I rather like, but we've called her Tammy so much that the name Tabitha is only her name on legal papers. Not even teachers called her that, and her parents gave up on it a long time ago. Our obsession was a game for Tammy, and she loved to play it.

She was famous for getting huge tattoos to show her love for the Outsiders, and the switchblade she carried around, but never used, of course, to be an even more real version of Two-Bit. It sometimes seemed like the only thing that made her different from her roleplaying role was the fact that she was honest, and never stole a single Tic-Tac.

If I had to pick the real character of the club, though, it'd be Daphne Wang- Dally's counterpart. Even being the awful artist I was, it was easy to draw her because of her unique, yet simple features. I found it interesting, though, that she didn't look a bit like Dallas in any physical way- it was more her attitude and the way she carried herself that made her perfect for the role.

Actually, Daphne was quite the opposite of Dally Winston's description. She had had pure black hair that she always kept neatly slicked back in a ponytail with hairspray, and there seemed to never be a single loose hair that ever fell in her face. She had dark, serious almond-shaped eyes, that seemed to always be contemplating something, and showed her Rumbler strength.

Daphne was small, but no one ever doubted her ability. She was the one who always did the most serious things to promote the Outsiders, like hacking into a computer system or spamming inboxes with Outsiders information. She had spent two years learning all the ways of the internet from a less than legal source, and had been banned from too many sites to count.

She was, undeniably, tougher than the rest of us- tougher, colder, more skilled. The shade of difference that separated the ways of a Rumbler from a Classic wasn't present in Daphne. She was just as fierce and never backed down from a difficult case.

In the training course she took, there were fans from a huge variety of small fandoms, and she blew off steam by debating with them day in and day out. In the real internet world, though, these small fan groups rarely came out in an argument, and the warfare is between the biggest groups.

Oh, there are smaller fandoms that sometimes show their faces to the Rumblers, like the Inkies and the Night Worlders, but there wasn't much rivalry between us, and the exchanges were never very heated.

So Daphne, even though she could get into a good debate sometimes, had no specific thing to hate. No rival smaller group. Only Twihards. And you can't win against them no matter how hard you try, because they've got all the breaks; the numbers; the whole world who knew them and accepted then. And even stumping them good in an argument wasn't going to change anything. Maybe that's why Daphne was so bitter.

She had quite a reputation. As I said before, loads of site moderators had her on their black list. She did everything there was to do on the internet- absolutely everything you could ever think of doing. I didn't really like her, but she was extremely smart and you had to respect her.

Jolie Mackins was the last and least. If you can picture a little dark puppy who's been ordered around too many times and is lost in a crowd of strangers, you'll have Jolie. She was the youngest, next to me, just as tall as the others but looked a lot younger, somehow, with a very slight build.

She had a tanned face, light brown hair that she always left down, and big eyes almost exactly the same colour. Her bangs were long and she hid her eyes behind them so much that it was a difficult job to even see the colour of them.

Jolie had a constantly nervous, worried look in her eyes, and that makeover she got from the Twihards didn't help matters. She was the club's pet, everyone's little sister.

Her father was always trying to take away her love of the Outsiders through yelling at her, and her mother ignored her when nothing helped, except when her bottled up anger at her daughter's stubbornness couldn't be held in anymore. Every time that happened, Jolie would always post a barely-intelligible post on our page, which made it clear how bad it was.

I think she hated that worse than the trips to the psychologist her parents kept forcing her to. She would've given up on her passion for the Outsiders a million times if we hadn't been there. If it hadn't been for the fanclub, Jolie would never had known what love and acceptance are.

**

* * *

**

And that concludes the descriptions. :) Review?


End file.
